I’ve been letting the season premiere of Battlestar Galactica sink in before posting about it, but I have had a bit of fun commenting over on Brad Templeton’s Battlestar Blog and Kenneth Hynek’s post Sometimes a Great. . .Ellen? about the Fifth Cylon reveal. I’ll recount here what I’ve said there and also add in a few new thoughts. This post contains spoilers, so if you haven’t watched the “Sometimes a Great Notion” episode, be warned. (more…)

Money quote from women’s studies professor Sue Brennan, who screened the show for a course called “Gender, Race and Sexuality in Pop Culture” at Ohio State University:

“On Battlestar Galactica, these are not damsels in distress that the men have to save, and that’s appealing particularly for women of my generation in their late 20s and 30s,” she said. “We were raised thinking about equality and I think Battlestar Galactica attracts women who maybe weren’t interested in sci-fi in the first place but now watch the show because it has so many strong female characters.”

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA returns this Friday with its last season, the first episode of which is called “Sometimes A Great Nation.” Here’s the latest teaser trailer:

Note that Romo Lampkin is back and he’s in custody for some reason — the teaser shows him being escorted down a corridor by several guards and later I’m pretty sure that’s him with Zarek shaking hands in a cell. Also note that in the teaser the words pop up “Who is the final cylon?” and then we see a shot of Dualla.

It’s probably all a huge fake-out, but it’s still fun to dissect it. Not too long ago I theorized that the Fifth Cylon was Dualla and threw around some ideas I called the Aurora Theory, but I admit Dualla doesn’t have the emotional impact the show has been promising.

I still maintain my original idea that Dualla is the Fifth Cylon is a compelling one. However, the new clues have given me a few ideas to toss around about Kara “Starbuck” Thrace, Baltar, and others. Namely, we’ll likely see three reveals in this last season rather than just the one everyone seems to be fixating on: